For a wide variety of devices that include a display, power consumption often is affected by certain display characteristics, such as brightness or backlight level. Devices that include a display may include, but are not limited to digital televisions, wireless communication devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop or desktop computers, tablet computers, mobile computing devices, digital cameras, video cameras, digital media players, video gaming devices, cellular or satellite radio telephones, smartphones, navigation devices, and the like. Many such devices use backlight displays, which may also be referred to as transmissive displays.
Backlight displays, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs), include a light source (i.e., a backlight) that illuminates optical elements of the respective displays. The optical elements of the display may receive input signals, for example, from a processor, video circuit, and/or a display driver. The input signals define the images that are to be displayed by the display. The backlight level may be adjusted to reduce power consumption caused by the backlight display.
Some displays, such as active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) displays, do not include a backlight. Instead, an AMOLED display includes individually addressable LEDs that can be selectively driven to emit light. In an AMOLED display, overall brightness of the LEDs may be adjusted to reduce power consumption by the display. However, maintaining acceptable visual quality of the displayed images while changing the backlight or brightness level can be challenging for a variety of reasons.